The Art of Romance

Orson Scott Card

Warning: this rant is basically one giant spoiler for the Shadow Sage by Orson Scott Card.

I am a geek. No joke. G. E. E. K. Thus its rather fitting that science fiction should be my favorite genre. (If scifi is my fave why do I write rants on romance? Because I have more pet peeves in this genre.) And of all the scifi books and geeky authors I've read- Orson Scott Card remains among the greats. He is my hero.
And get this: for a scifi writer, he's pretty darn good at romance. I mean. He even used a love triangle without annoying me. Like: 👏👍👌👌
I'm not exactly sure where to start with this rant so I'll start where Card did: Ender's Game. In which every reader comes to love Bean and Petra and despise Peter. Except me. I love Peter. 😍😍😍😍 After Ender wanders off into deep space, we turn to the Shadow Saga to find out what happens to our earthling heroes. Naturally, they returned to earth. We were all surprised to find a budding romance between Bean and Petra.

Not disappointed. Merely surprised.

I must admit that I read their first kiss scene with 100% pure elation. I also read anything with Peter in it with pure elation. Don't judge.
But the series continued and I found myself in the awkward position of noticing that Peter... kind of... seemed to... like Petra. And it was honestly kind of cute. Petra, naturally was clueless. Then came the moment that we all knew was coming. (Epic spoilers. I warned you)
Bean left earth.
Petra was left with their 5 children and a war to fight and no Bean to support her. So she handed her children to her parents and fought a war. Behind the scenes, though, was Prince Charming. I mean, Peter Wiggin. Petra comes home to find he'd been helping to raise her kids. For a year. She had been clueless. (Again)
After her initial outrage, Petra thanked Peter and asked him for a favor. Would he read this letter Bean had left to her?
He closed with the words, "I love you." Then Peter left. In bed that night, Petra read the letter again and again. Mysteriously missing from the end of the letter. "I love you."
It takes Petra much longer to realize what this meant than it should have. It also took me much longer to figure out what this meant than it should have. When it clicked?
It wasn't so much a fangirl attack than a seizure.
Why didn't this love triangle annoy me? I didn't actually realize it was a love triangle until it had been resolved.
Anyway. This was more of a fangirl session than a rant on love triangles but can you blame me? It was a beautifully written romance!!!

End note: i have had many people call me "cruel" "crazy" "psycho" etc. for liking Peter Wiggin. I would just like to remind everybody:::::

Really, every one should be much more concerned that I was quite fond of Achilles.
>>Adry Grace